The Paper/Hypertext/Collage Defined

~Collage definitions:
1. the act of gluing (French)
2. piece of art made by sticking various different materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric onto a backing.
3. a combination or collection of various things.

~How do these things work together for hypertext? DO they?
  • We are gluing/molding/putting ideas and texts together to create art
  • These words, images, and sounds are being molded into a new creation
  • Digital "glue" (the hyperlinks themselves) holds the pieces of texts together
  • The backing is the web page (web pages) which we click (or get others to click) in order to see the whole work

~Idea of translators as traitors: what to think of this?
  • Are they? I think of people who say Version X of the Bible is better than Version Y because X is more like the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic
  • Or are translators helping guide readers in what's important? (Of course, this is subjective) I think of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf
  • Can they be both?

~Readers of hypertext have more power than readers of static, print materials (according to Nelson, referenced in Landow)
  • But how does this power function?
  • I think of Spiderman here: "With great power comes great responsibility"
  • Then I think of Foucault; it all comes back to power somehow: who has it, who doesn't, and agency
  • Then I think of Wikipedia--we all have the power to change it, but relatively few do. There are SO MANY LINKS to other pages and outside sites there!! And that's just a snapshot of what the World Wide Web looks like

Hypertext as Digital Code

~ Follow aspects of Modern Art
  • Juxtaposition
  • Appropriation
  • Assemblage
  • Concatenation
  • Blurring limits, edges, borders
  • Blurring distinctions between border and ground

~ Print vs Text
  • Print moves in one direction vs hypertext where the reader can choose their direction
  • Quotes in hypertext can stand alone as a voice vs being summarized or changed through text

~ Links
  • Links connect hypertext, but they can also stand alone as individual pieces
  • Those individual pieces make up a collage where the pieces may have parallel structure or verbal echoing
  • This creates juxtaposition


Virtual Collage
  • Despite its unclear origins as belonging to painting or poetry, Joris attributes it to painting due to the spatial medium
  • Problematic since you take in a painting at a glance and cannot do so with a virtual collage—text involves the temporal medium as well (it takes time to read and process)
  • Hypertext bridges the gap by combining both the visual and the verbal aspects
  • Hypertext and hypermedia always exist as virtual, rather than physical texts
  • Digital words and images take the form of semiotic codes
  • Digital infotech
    • Virtuality
    • Fluidity
    • Adaptability
    • Openness
    • Processability
    • Infinite duplicability
    • Capacity for being moved about rapidly
    • Networkability



  • Digital Text is fluid and thus, infinitely adaptable to different needs and uses
  • Collage arose within Cubism and offered a new approach to picture space that is limited in digital media
  • Projects rely on layers of illusory representations piled upon one another to create one acceptable illusion



Discussion Questions:
1.Do we, as readers normed (or primed, whichever) for print materials like the power?
2. Do the spatial arrangements such as: tiles, webs, placement of lexia, or multiple window systems involve you in the narrative?
3.Considering the fluid and adaptable nature of virtual collage, is there a need or a way to arrive at a common interpretation of the lexia? If not, can there truly be authorial intent?